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Platform for discussion not centred around the sharing of links
~talk seems to fit this criteria, but as I browse Tildes to my dismay the majority of content is re-posts of links from external sources. Obviously, there are also quite a few posts which are more than simply URL pastes, and even in the comments of a URL post, there can be healthy discourse happening.
But I am interested to discover whether anyone here knows of any other platforms that are entirely dedicated to written discussion and communication, where external links do not play a big part in that ecosystem of discourse.
I can't really think of anything other than blogging platforms with comments sections in them and traditional bulletin board style forums (though even those often have link sharing aspects to them). There are also a few others social sites that sort of fit the bill, but aren't a perfect match for what you're looking for:
Metafilter is link sharing focused, but also has a mandatory self-text description since they don't allow just straight URL submissions.
Kialo is 100% discussion based but is focused entirely on debates, not free form discussions.
And finally Reddit, but using Reddit Enhancement Suite to filter all but self-text posts can also sort of work for what you're looking for.
ironically enough were it not for the nature of the community and the general setup of the site, reddit would probably be really good for doing what the OP suggests (and honestly, might still be despite those glaring deficiencies!), since you can probably use a mixture of the self-post only setting and automoderator to enforce a no-link zone and, hypothetically, build a subreddit exclusively off of that.
The few subreddits that I know of do that quite well. /r/changemyview is spectacular. /r/legaladvice and /r/bestoflegaladvice also are good to some extent.
Legaladvice, bestof, and legaladviceUK are all hell holes. The amount of piling on and votes based on feels not correctness of advice make them impossible to use. Bestof is just a brigade sub, and the votes from a million Americans are really distorting to a small UK sub. Pretty sure every single one of these was linked to by bestof: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/top/?t=month
People often ask for legal advice because they've made some kind of mistake, and those people get completely shat on by legaladvice subs.
reddit's new "popular" algorithm seems to really like legaladvice and bestoflegaladvice. I've been checking popular occasionally since that update to see how "the front page of reddit" has been behaving now, and there's been a post from both of them near the top every time I've looked. Yesterday, a locked post from legaladvice sat at #1 for hours (Edit: a locked legaladvice post is sitting at #1 again now, with most of the comments either removed or mod comments explaining the removals).
This is making them even worse than they usually are, since it's attracting a ton of "casual" users that try to treat them as places they can just go and make dumb jokes or try to argue about politics. I'm sure the mods are having a lot of fun trying to keep it under control (which is probably why almost all of the posts are getting locked).
Huh, I was wondering why /r/popular seemed to be showing more of certain subreddits lately. I usually browse logged off on /r/popular at work (usually safer that way) and had seen a lot more of subs like legaladvice. Now, whatever you feel about LA and BOLA, it does seem like /r/popular has been promoting more text-based subs to the front page which I have actually found refreshing. I've seen less memes and more discussion, even if it's still an 85/15 split lol
Didn't they announce that there was an opt-out for individual subs? A lot of subs wouldn't do well to get the kind of massive exposure being at the top of the main logged-out sort. I keep meaning to get over there and disable it on the one large-ish sub I mod, but I've been on mobile most of the time lately.
Yeah, IMO the legal advice subreddits would be sooooo much better if the only people who could actually vote on comments were officially verified practicing attorneys/barristers/lawyers/law professors/legal scholars/paralegals/etc, perhaps only in the region the OP is from too. But that can't happen on reddit due to its totally open and uniform experience nature, though maybe it might be possible here on Tildes eventually? :P
It would also run afoul of many state's bar associations. You aren't supposed to dish out legal advice in such a cavalier way, without meeting the client and hearing the full story, doing due diligence to investigate the case, etc. It runs counter to their professional ethics. I've always thought people are pretty unrealistic to expect a stranger on the internet to give them real, actionable advice on a legal problem, and expect it to be accurate to their particular case and the details surrounding it anyway.
They can be entertaining but also infuriating. Both because of the subject matter and because lots of the "advice" given is wildly inaccurate to the point of being downright harmful. Mods are incredibly heavy handed when it comes to the silliest of things and run the place more like a circus than an advice forum.
Cool, thanks for the suggestions. If only the Kialo UX wasn't so clumsy (something more like Tildes).
I actually think if you dive into it, the Kialo UI is actually pretty amazing for formal debates:
Kialo: Introduction - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MifNyU49_JA
Kialo: How to Debate - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWSp2yvVE4k
However it definitely doesn't work well for facilitating free form discussions, where threading (like used on Tildes & reddit) works much better, IMO.
That does seem to me like the obvious solution. Tumblr and Steemit comes to mind.
Hubski natively allows filtering to text posts only. I know many of us are here at Tildes because we don't really like Reddit, so I thought some might appreciate an alternative.
Would unsubscribing from all groups except ~talk (and possibly ~tildes for meta-discussion) suit your needs?
It'd also probably be fairly simple to add a user preference of "filter out all link posts". If you think that'd be useful, it'd be worth posting that to ~tildes.suggestions to see if it'd be widely used enough to be worth implementing.
This is a compromise, not a solution; in doing this I would limit the scope of potential discussion. I'm looking for platforms where all discussion is approached in this way, not looking for ways to turn into a digital hermit
There doesn’t seem to be a solution, so people are suggesting compromises. We’re doing the best we can :/
I fail to see how. You want something like ~, without all the link topics. Sure, you would limit the scope, but only by filtering out discussion of links, which you seemingly don't want to discuss anyway.
You said yourself
So just skip the link and read the discourse? Generally the title gives you as much as a text-only title for a topic would.
If by "digital hermit," you mean there isn't much content here yet for that to provide much content, you're likely correct, but this site is in Alpha. You'd have to have some patience to see if it reaches the critical point where there's plenty of non-link topics to discuss.
my argument is that the qualitative nature of content differs from link posts to non-link posts, so from that point of view, it's a compromise. But I see what you're saying and I understand what you mean. In any case, I'll definitely be participating in this community effort for the forseeable future.
Somewhat related, you may be interested in a previous discussion around this:
I have to say, I'm with Deimos on this one. I don't think for a second link sharing quashes meaningful discussion, an article or a video is the starting point that presents the idea/point and users' various opinion follow. I'd agree if it were low effort image macros and in-jokes being targeted, but it's just the word "link" which is such a broad spectrum of content.
My thoughts too. For me, the article/video/image/whatever is just the start of a conversation. Even seemingly "low-effort" (and I really hate this term) posts can generate really good discussion. It takes both posting and commenting.
I'm noticing more than ever the nature of sharing on most social media platforms is often done in a kind of autopilot state. It's simultaneously comical and ghastly to me. For example, on this website, what are people's motivation for sharing links with nothing more than a URL? Do they believe they're doing some good by sharing "valuable information"? Or maybe there's some dopamine fetish obsession with watching the seed they planted grow into comments and votes, etc. Maybe you (link-sharer reading this) think you're helping to contribute to the Tildes community by creating content in the form of a link post?
This isn't intended as an insult to anyone, I'm actually calling for anyone to offer an explanation as to why they share links in this way.
Your comment kind of does read like an insult, even if you didn't necessarily mean it that way though... especially because of the "autopilot state" accusation (implying no thought, effort or consideration goes in to submitting content), as well as the fact that your hypothetical reasons for sharing either imply only doing so out of a selfish desire or are mildly condescending towards the potentially altruistic ones, e.g. by putting "air" quotes around "valuable information".
And while I can't speak for everyone, I do tend to think of my sharing content as primarily coming from a place of altruism. I want to help Deimos and Tildes succeed and one of the best ways I can do that is by seeking out and submitting interesting articles, video and music here that other users will hopefully enjoy, get value out of consuming and/or enjoy discussing.
Quotes were used to highlight the subjectivity of something like "valuable information", which is important when considering the motivations behind social sharing.
I happen to also want this community to prove itself to be something more than a Twitter or Reddit clone. All of the points raised were in the context of how sites like this function and the driving forces behind the users that are active upon them.
Autopilot is an incredibly necessary and useful feature - in aeroplanes, and for doing tasks like lifting heavy weight and chewing food. I'm sure a great deal of link sharing happens on autopilot. I've done it myself. I believe that drawing attention to and generating debate around higher level observations like this one can help to improve and ultimately strengthen the resolve and quality of social spaces like Tildes.
Thanks for your comment.
Fair enough, you make some good counterpoints and perhaps I did read much more negativity into your comment than you intended. I still personally think the vast majority of link sharing on aggregate sites is done with altruistic motives though, which is one of the reasons I absolutely despise "karma whore" accusations on reddit. I'm sure there are a few actual karma whores, trying to personally profit or padding their ego through the links they share... but they are exceptionally rare IMO. I think most people share just because sharing and socializing is in our nature.
Based on statistics someone showed me a few weeks ago, I know that I am one of the most prolific posters here on Tildes, if not the most prolific poster (behind only @Deimos himself), and I assure you I'm not posting on auto-pilot.
I spend significant time finding the right articles/videos to post here. I don't just look at a title, copy the URL, and paste it here. I read every article and watch every video I post here to assess whether it's suitable for Tildes, and whether people will find it interesting (which also means I read some articles and watch some videos I end up not posting because they're not suitable). Some articles & videos I'll post immediately, but some I'll save up so that I can post them later - to keep the posts spread out over time, rather than dumping 10 links in an hour. I put some effort into finding and curating the content I post here.
This.
I'm very aware of the 90-9-1 rule for participation inequality in social media and online communities, which says that most people won't post content to an internet forum. I know this is true, from my years of moderating subreddits on Reddit. Therefore, despite the fact that I'm usually more of a commenter than a poster, I am deliberately pushing myself to be a poster here, because I'm aware that, in these early days particularly, there are not many posters around. There are only 7,000 registered users on Tildes, which means that 1% who'll post content is only about 70 people - and many of those registered accounts aren't active, so 70 is a very optimistic maximum (it's probably more like only 30 or 40 people who are regularly posting content here). I'm therefore forcing myself to step up and post content instead of just commenting on other people's content.
Honestly, I'm looking forward to the day when I don't have to do this. I want to go back to mostly commenting! But, I believe in Tildes and what @Deimos is doing, so I'm doing my bit to help out.
EDIT: Bugger! I missed a word!
that's very interesting about the statistics. I'd also commend your efforts in community building. Despite being curious about non-link centric online platforms, I can certainly see why posting links is appealing, especially in a fledgling community like Tildes.
Since I just finished sharing a link with nothing more than a URL before I looked at this topic, I guess that'll work as a good example for me to explain why I do it.
Here's the post, it links to an article about a study showing a massive decline in insect populations (and other animals that depend on those insects for food). I think the article is interesting and discusses topics that I don't personally know much about. Without this article, how could that information have been spread to others on Tildes that might be interested in it (and potentially also started a conversation about it)? "Anybody read anything interesting in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences lately?", "Anybody been to the rainforest in Puerto Rico a few times over the last 30 years and felt like there were fewer insects?" Even the first one of those is basically just a request for someone else to give you a link.
There's value from both conversations and from links to articles, videos, or other external sources of information. The fact that we have instant access to so much information on the internet is one of the most incredible aspects of it, and (at least to me) actively avoiding it seems like a strange thing to want to do. It's a bit like asking why anyone ever reads (or watches, or listens to) anything instead of just having conversations with other people.
Good points, well presented. Unsure how to solve the problem of links feeling like spam. Perhaps it's the lack of humanity in a link, that makes discourse (comprised of at least two persons) difficult to start, and even when the discourse does start, it's not really a discourse, it's a comment.
There is a very big and important difference between a comment and a response initiating or continuing a discussion.
Of course, comments can spawn discussion, but when each comment is unfocused and essentially an untethered discourse you're at a something of a "card disadvantage" so to speak.
Thesis: skimming an article, then posting it for others to take about 12 seconds (source) to engage with and provide skim commentary is also a form of "avoiding".
DISCLAIMER: I would never even dream of making the claim that anyone actually does this; least of all on Tildes ;-)
In all seriousness though, no animosity intended. I think it's a really important discussion to have. It does seem that people conflate "information" with "knowledge" a lot when talking about the internet's potential. Sure, there's all this information, but what we really need is a better ways to filter through and understand it all.
I post a combination of both write-ups and direct links. Links are usually newsworthy items or interesting facts/opinions. I post links for a variety of reasons that mostly depend on what I'm linking to. As a really rough estimate, I'm guessing my links are about 3/4 news that I believe is worth sharing, always with the hope that it'll generate discussion, and about 1/4 interesting takes on storytelling tropes that are very much to generate discussion.
Often times, I want to post a topic, and choose that first. If I see a video or read an article that already does a good job of it, I don't feel the need to rewrite it to post. If I don't find what I want to express, I just write it instead.
Other times, I see something I would just love to hear what others think of it - I just post these ones.
Nice summary, appreciate it.
for me personally when i do this it's either (1) because i don't really have anything to say myself about the subject (usually with things outside of my expertise like computer science) but i think other people might find it interesting, or (2) because i don't have the time to write something up (even though i might intend to) but think the article's interesting enough to strike up a conversation regardless of that.
I use Tildes as essentially a filter for the internet at large, I trust that people on here will post something they think is worth-while reading. It's really a service, and many thanks to the tildesians who take the time to post–links or otherwise–it really keeps the site going.
Of course, the discussion is a big part of every post, but without a link to anchor the discussion, what would people talk about? It's not like a specific topic or hobby forum where the common point of discussion is already established. Every link posted is like a new mini forum for discussion about that topic. Sure not everything is going to generate loads of comments but that doesn't make it less valuable.
As for just dropping a link, I can see value in leaving the starting point of discussion openended, a post from op kind slants discussion to one side–but that's a bit of an iffy reason. More relevant is that a vast majority of posts are done by a very small group of users (can't find the post where deimos shared the stats), as they are already doing most of the heavy lifting, why not help out. If you see a lone link-post that grabs you, chuck in a comment and start the discussion.
I'm actually one of those that almost never include a "first comment". The main reason for this is because I want people to discuss the article/video and not my comment. That's probably the slant that you're referring to, and I've noticed it a lot. And I have nothing to back this up, but I feel when there's a comment, it sort of focuses discussion there and other really worthwhile points may be overlooked in favour of it.
Yeah that's it. It's something about having the op post a first comment, the assumption being that as op they have read the article and are just commenting on the interesting bit so you as a reader don't need to bother reading the link, it's been condensed into that one comment.
Actually, it was @Celeo who collated those statistics: here.
Whops, yeah that was it. Out of interest how did you find the post, I tried searching but couldn't come up with anything.
I went to ~tildes.official, sorted by 'new', then scrolled down until I found the right "general feedback" thread - because I remembered that's where it was.
Yeah fair enough, I thought their might have been a search tool I was not aware of.
There's only one, very basic, search tool on Tildes.
Extremely basic search added
Minor search update: topic tags are now included in search
Cool, thanks for the links.
I think this issue may be solved once more groups get added. The ones here so far are very link-focused, with few exceptions.
This wasn't intended as a critique of Tildes, despite it inadvertently veering into one. Tildes has a set of design principles and I'm not interested in debating those. I completely understand that link sharing is considered valuable on this platform.
I was just interested to learn if anyone knew about platforms that are specifically designed for focused discussion/debate/communication/talking (not IRC/chatrooms) that are designed with a focus on original content, or that don't depend on link sharing as a starting point for discussion.
Kialo is interesting but it is too focused on the idea of "debate" as a duality. I think that the word is more nuanced than simply "X vs Y" (those that support the thesis vs those that oppose it) and enforcing a two-position structure onto each debate does as much to harm the potential for healthy discussion (and debate) as it does to facilitate it.
It's a good question and I'm glad you asked it. I think we've already set the foundation in place for turning Tildes into that space.
The way the group-subgroup filtering dynamics should play out is to send the posts that hit the 'good discussion' milestone up to the next group in the chain. The posts that merely flutter and only attract a couple comments will remain in their origin groups. The ones that heat up and get busy are the ones that have a shot at jumping up. Our tools for spotting that will be votes, exemplary tokens (like we use on comments but for submissions), some form of editor/publisher mod activity in the origin group and in the parent to vet that it's good enough. Probably other things as people dream them up and Deimos experiments.
If this works, all you'd want to do here is sub to top-level groups on most topics. By the time a post bubbles up to the level where you are subscribed and you find it, the thread will be lively, not a ghost town. Then you'd sub to more specific sub-groups for the places you had a direct interest in, to get all of their content. Gives people the option of subbing 'generally' to a topic and 'specifically' to another topic both on the same site.
It should turn Tildes' 'root' hierarchy groups (basically the ones we have now) into something like the antithesis of a default subreddit on reddit. Instead of a landslide of low-quality short-lived posts like reddit, here ours will become a gateway group to all of the best content from all the communities below them. The longer the hierarchy chains get, the more peer-review the post gets before getting bumped up.
So, to answer your question - they can both live together on the same site. What we need is a way to sift out the good ones of either kind, so we're not being spammed by the inactive ones. As the site grows, the hierarchy itself will help serve that purpose. We can't realize the potential, though, until there are much greater activity levels here and we have the group-subgroup systems cooked.
No, we haven't, and we won't.
@Nexu wants a discussion-only internet forum. No link posts, all text posts. Tildes will always be a mixture of both link posts and text posts. @Nexu wants a place like Tildes and Reddit and Hacker News, where there's lots of discussion - but without link posts. Tildes will never be that place.
I think he wants to not be bored. :)
All it'd take here to get what he wants is a couple filters. In fact if enough people like the discussion-only aspect, it might be worth making it a 'view' of some kind that's more accessible. It'd be trivial to shift from seeing all link posts to all discussion posts here.
If you read their comments throughout the thread, you'll see that it's more than that. They want something that demonstrates human interaction - and, from their point of view, merely dumping URLs into a group is not human interaction.
That'd probably come down to having a few communities here set up to do that specifically. Possibly even comment and forum modes aimed at doing a better job at that sort of content. I'm sure they'll arise on their own over time, we'd just want some way to let the people here for that particular kind of discussion know that they all exist.
4chan’s text boards somewhat fit this description, and you can argue that the site still fills a similar function.
...but it’s 4chan so you have to deal with that
Like web forums?
I suppose web forums were for one reason or another more inclined towards written posts than simple URL posting. Probably related to the layout
This might be a bit off topic but I feel that submission with only a link lead to the problem OP describes. If there was a need for a proper discussion starter and text in addition to the link, then I think the problem wouldn't exist in such a scope. However in my short time here I've noticed even very "heavy topics" being just links without any further input whatsoever and I feel those would've lead to much more fruitful discussion with something to start with in addition to the link.
I hang out on Hubski, which allows exactly this. What inevitably happens is that when posting a link, users add their own opinions in the text field. Sometimes I find the link worth sharing, but don't agree with the poster's opinions. Should I share it? Or does that signal agreement? Maybe a non-issue, but that's the kind of thing my mind gets hung up on.
The problem with discussions is starting them. That's why people do things like book clubs, and seminars/conferences have keynote speakers and such. You start with a content dump, then people talk about it. That's why on Reddit for example there's massive amounts of activity around link sharing, but places where people only do self posts are relative ghost towns.
There's a few reasons for that. Having the author present for the discussion can make criticism difficult - it's much easier to question somebody's linked content (that they didn't write) rather than question content written by someone directly. There's usually much more content involved in a link than you will usually find in a self post, which means it's far more likely for people to notice things they want to say about it. It's also far more likely to be related to other things (since those sorts of posts don't happen in a vacuum and usually relate to pre-existing content or communities) which will itself promote discussion.
I'm not saying you won't find what you're looking for, but you certainly won't find what you're looking for with as large a userbase over time as a link aggregator. And the instant the community allows link sharing that portion of the site is likely to swamp the rest.
I beg to differ. Look at /r/AskReddit, /r/AskScience, /r/AskHistorians, /r/ExplainLikeImFive, /r/WritingPrompts, /r/ChangeMyView, /r/DebateReligion, /r/CasualConversation, /r/Jokes, /r/TIFU, /r/Self, /r/ShowerThoughts, and, at the risk of some self-promotion... /r/DaystromInstitute. They're hardly ghost towns!